P. M. — To Beck Stow’s.
I see of late a good many young sparrows (and old) of different species flitting about. That blackberry-field of Gowing’s in the Great Fields, this side of his swamp, is a famous place for them. I see a dozen or more, old and young, perched on the wall. As I walk along, they fly up from the grass and alight on the wall, where they sit on the alert with outstretched necks.
Now is our rainy season. It has rained half the days for ten days past. Instead of dog-day clouds and mists, we have a rainy season. You must walk armed with an umbrella. It is wettest in the woods, where the air has had no chance to dry the bushes at all.
The Myriophyllum ambiguum, apparently variety natans, is now apparently in its prime. Some buds have gone to seed; others are not yet open. It is floating all over the surface of the pool, by the road, at the swamp, — long utricularia-like masses without the bladders. The emersed part, of linear or pectinate leaves, rises only about half an inch; the rest, eighteen inches more or less in length, consists of an abundance of capillary pinnate leaves, covered with slime or conserve (?) as a web. Evidently the same plant, next the shore and creeping over the mud, only two or three inches long, is without the capillary leaves, having roots instead, and apparently is the variety limosum (?), I suspect erroneously so called.
Heard a fine, sprightly, richly warbled strain from a bird perched on the top of a bean-pole. It was at the same time novel yet familiar to me. I soon recognized it for the strain of the purple finch, which I have not heard lately. But though it appeared as large, it seemed a different-colored bird. With my glass, four rods off, I saw it to be a goldfinch. It kept repeating this warble of the purple finch for several minutes. A very surprising note to be heard now, when birds generally are so silent. Have not heard the purple finch of late.
I conclude that the goldfinch is a very fine and powerful singer, and the most successful and remarkable mocking-bird that we have. In the spring I heard it imitate the thrasher exactly, before that bird had arrived, and now it imitates the purple finch as perfectly, after the latter bird has ceased to sing! It is a surprising vocalist. It did not cease singing till I disturbed it by my nearer approach, and then it went off with its usual mew, succeeded by its watery twitter in its ricochet flight. Have they not been more common all summer than formerly?
I go along plum path behind Adolphus Clark’s. This is a peculiar locality for plants. The Desmodium Canadense is now apparently in its prime there and very common, with its rather rich spikes of purple flowers, — the most (?) conspicuous of the desmodiums. It might be called Desmodium Path.
Also the small rough sunflower (now abundant) and the common apocynum (also in bloom as well as going and gone to seed) are very common.
I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds there, some distance off. It reminds me of the lateness of the season.
Saw the elodea (not long) and a dangle-berry ripe (not long) at Beck Stow’s.
See a small variety of helianthus growing with the divaricatus, on the north side of Peter’s path, two rods east of bars southeast of his house. It is an imperfect flower, but apparently answers best to the H. tracheliifolius. There is evidently a great variety in respect to form, petiole, venation, roughness, thickness, and color of the leaves of helianthuses.
Saw yesterday the Utricularia vulgaris, apparently in its prime, yellowing those little pools in Lincoln at the town bound by Walden. Their stems and leaves seem to half fill them. Some pools, like that at bath-place by pond in R. W. E.’s wood, will have for all vegetation only the floating immersed stems and leaves, light brown, of this plant, without a flower, perhaps on account of shade.
The great bullfrogs, of various colors from dark brown to greenish yellow, lie out on the surface of these slimy pools or in the shallow water by the shore, motionless and philosophic. Toss a chip to one, and he will instantly leap and seize and drop it as quick. Motionless and indifferent as they appear, they are ready to leap upon their prey at any instant.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1858
Nearest sit the huckleberry-birds; next the bay-wings, with which and further off the yellow-browed sparrows, of whom one at least has a clear yellowish breast I infer was Fringilla passerina. See August 8, 1858 (“I see at Clamshell Hill a yellow-browed sparrow sitting quite near on a haycock, pluming itself.”); and note to July 26, 1858 (“ A broad egg, white with large reddish and purplish brown spots chiefly about large end. . . Could not see the bird; only saw bay-wings and huckleberry-birds. I suspect it may be the Fringilla passerina? He says the bird had a clear yellowish-white breast!”); June 28, 1858 (“According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, the Fringilla passerina has for the most part clear yellowish-white breast.... Audubon says that the eggs . . .of the yellow-winged sparrow are “of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots.”); May 28, 1856 (“A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest . . .Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown, yet most like a small ground bird’s egg, rather broad at one end, pretty fresh.”)
The seringo note. See April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick, the last two bars being the part chiefly heard."). See June 26, 1856 (" According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, ... the Savannah sparrow no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. Rode to Sconticut Neck or Point in Fairhaven, five or six miles, and saw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod. Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast, not like plate of passerina. Audubon says that the eggs of the Savannah sparrow “are of a pale bluish color, softly mottled with purplish brown,””); May 28, 1856 ("A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest . . . Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown . . ..”); October 22, 1855 ("I sit on a bank at the brook crossing, beyond the grove, to watch a flock of seringos, perhaps Savannah sparrows, which, with some F. hyemalis and other sparrows, are actively flitting about amid the alders and dogwood. "); July 16, 1854 ("Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings?“). See also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "(Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.)”
Heard a fine, sprightly, richly warbled strain from a bird perched on the top of a bean-pole.I conclude that the goldfinch is a very fine and powerful singer, and the most successful and remarkable mocking-bird that we have. See April 19, 1858 ("This was the most varied and sprightly performer of any bird I have heard this year, and it is strange that I never heard the strain before. It may be this note which is taken for the thrasher’s before the latter comes.") See also June 25, 1853 ("I think it must be the purple finch . . . which I see and hear singing so sweetly and variedly in the gardens . .. on a bean-pole or fence-picket. It has a little of the martin warble and of the canary bird.")
I smell the fragrant everlasting concealed in the higher grass and weeds. See August 10, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting, maybe some days.”); August 13, 1856 (“Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime?. . . Does not the season require this tonic?“); August 29, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting in prime and very abundant, whitening Carter's pasture.”); September 19, 1852 ("The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound. "); September 26, 1852 ("The small cottony leaves of the fragrant everlasting in the fields for some time, protected, as it were, by a little web of cotton against frost and snow, — a little dense web of cotton spun over it, — entangled in it, — as if to restrain it from rising higher."); February 25, 1857 (“The fragrant everlasting has retained its fragrance all winter. ”)
The small rough sunflower (now abundant) and see a small variety of helianthus growing with the divaricatus, on the north side of Peter’s path. See August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats”); August 11, 1856 ("A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, . . ., which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st”); August 12, 1856 (“Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus (which may have opened near August 1st)”); August 29, 1856 (The Helianthus decapetalus, apparently a variety, with eight petals, about three feet high, leaves petioled, but not wing-petioled, and broader-leaved than that of August 12th“)
It reminds me of the lateness of the season. See July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!”); July 30 1852 (After midsummer we have a belated feeling . . .") ; August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now”)
August 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 11
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau"A book, each page written in its own season,out-of-doors, in its own locality.”~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021
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